PA security guard indicted for 2011 Joseph’s Tomb shooting
Nuaf Bani Auda allegedly shot and killed Ben Yosef Livnat, who was making a pilgrimage to the Nablus site
A Palestinian Authority security guard was indicted Thursday by an IDF military court for the 2011 death by shooting of an Israeli man at Joseph’s Tomb, in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Nuaf Bani Auda and two other security officers were detained in April in connection with the shooting, which left Ben-Yosef Livnat dead and five others injured. All three suspects were working as officers in the Palestinian Authority’s security establishment in 2011.
Before their April arrest the three men had recently been released from PA jail, where they had served jail time for Livnat’s death, according to a Ma’an news agency report.
According to the indictment, during the 2011 altercation at the tomb, Auda fired on Livnat’s vehicle from about 7 meters (21 feet) away as it was attempting to leave the area. The other officers present fired their weapons in the air.
The site, believed to be the burial place of the Biblical patriarch Joseph, is popular with some Jewish worshipers, who make monthly pilgrimages under IDF protection.
Livnat, the nephew of Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat, was part of a group of some 15 people who visited the site without military authorization, according to a Haaretz report at the time.